Party Like a Southerner: The Party Trailers

From a field lounge to a shrimp shack, two mid-century classic campers morph into eclectic gathering spaces

byJessica Mischner

October/November 2014

photo: Olivia Rae James

Inside their Spartanette, a cocktail lounge/lodge setup.

The Party TrailersAwendaw, South Carolina

When Leighton and Tara Derr Webb invite friends over to their “mansion,” they’re not being pretentious. The couple’s 1949 Spartan Mansion land craft, which predates the design of the Airstream, is one of two mid-century party trailers parked on their four-acre waterfront farm, Deux Puces, about thirty miles up the coast from Charleston, South Carolina. The setting for frequent gatherings of neighbors, family, and the farmers and food artisans who supply the Webbs’ restaurant, Farmbar, the Spartan Mansion—affectionately dubbed the Beast—and its smaller Spartanette counterpart act as blank canvases for the creative pair’s get-togethers.

“They’re like Transformers,” Tara says. “We entertain outside, so we like to keep things mobile and reinterpret as the occasion changes.” To facilitate the transition from, say, a field lounge to a photobooth—two recent incarnations of the Spartanette—the Webbs rely on partitionable bars, tables, and other designs they’ve commissioned from local artists such as Stephen Wain of Greenwood Design.“We’ve installed a pop-up kitchen, a dance floor, a stage, you name it,” Tara says. “We’re even turning the Beast into a makeshift shrimp shack for oyster roasts and peel-and-eat parties. Nothing is ever static around here.”